My ship has been on troubled water and I have been trying to keep my eyes shut tight enough, fingers in my ears deep enough to drown out the sights and sounds of a dangerous voyage…and all the while He is there offering true rest. Not the rest that comes from escaping into an alternate reality in paperback. Not the rest that comes from a black flat screen flickering blue until I fall asleep on the couch. But the kind that comes from creation out of chaos.
That’s what He does you know…creates in chaos. He hung the stars, organized, each in their place and created order from chaos. He offers to do this in me and for me, yet it seems easier to hide. Because His rest does not allow me to ignore the storm, but gives the courage to face it.
Certainly, I am busier than ever and need to allow myself space to rest. But I’ve gone about it the wrong way. I’ve thought it was all about recreation when it was really about re-creation. I need to re-create. When I am not re-creating, but merely recreating, I am not truly resting. I am simply allowing someone or something to try to cover my concerns with noise louder than the storm. The kind of re-creation I need boldly faces the storm and says, “Peace be still.” And time slows till all is calm, all is bright. Now there is space for Him to develop the Divine in the belly of the ship.
He is there in that space, resting while all hell breaks loose on the outside…unconcerned about the storm because He knows that He can re-create with His words. I am like those disciples, still too timid to speak to the storm. But at least I know enough to run to the One who can calm the storm. And He knows my weakness and does for me what I can not seem to do for myself. Yet He’s given me the hope that I can some day. It’s something to aspire to. But it won’t be done by mindlessly staring at another person’s reality for hours on end.
I am made in His image. Designed to create. And when my life is storming He is waiting for me to use this gift to re-create the atmosphere with my words…His Words. It is then that I can rest in His ability to calm the storm, to accomplish what He set forth in those words to create…calm from chaos, peace in broken pieces, beauty from ashes.
This year, I am determined to watch over my recreation time. To be purposeful in it. What is this down time creating in me? Is it presenting a world view different from the Great Creative? Is it creating rest and peace? Or is it adding to the turmoil in and around me?
My friend Sandra Heska King has chosen home as her #oneword365. I have chosen rest. But our meditation scripture is the same.
Isaiah 32:18 My people will live in peaceful dwelling places,
in secure homes,
in undisturbed places of rest.
No matter where I find myself I can be in an undisturbed place of rest. I can let His words re-create my environment to a place of peace. To rest – cease work or movement in order to relax, refresh oneself, or recover strength. He is my dwelling place…and so I rest. In His Presence is fullness of joy…and so I rest.